However, listening to older music (like the Beatles) is much more enjoyable on the tube devices, the sound is "different".
It shouldn't be. Not unless either your tube amp, or your transistor amp, in a word, sucks, anyway.
Tube amps and transistor amps differ from each other in sound reproduction not at all in the linear zone used to reproduce music. A tube amp may have a slightly higher noise floor (and then again, it may not... but really low noise tube amps will cost ya.)
Where tube and transistor amps differ significantly (meaning, to your ear) are in what happens when you drive them so hard that they can no longer linearly reproduce the signal you're feeding them. A naive transistor amp will hard clip, generating a most unpleasant bunch of harmonics, along with a distorted version of the original signal. A tube amp (given an adequate power supply) will clip softly (by comparison), rounding off the signal instead of cutting the tops into flatlines or droopy reverse trapezoids, and this is much easier on the ear.
Now here is the thing: Anyone who likes music, much less loves it, would never, and I seriously mean never, not just "mostly wouldn't", manage music reproduction in such a way as to have our tube or transistor amplifiers distort. Because the second we do so, differences notwithstanding, the music would have to sound better to reach up through the resulting dreck to the standard of "sounding like shit."
So tube/transistor, difference meme, WTF? This WTF: For a musician, playing a single instrument, and usually that means an instrument producing a relatively simple waveform, the tube distortion *does* add interest (think electric blues guitar for the classic example), and so for the musician, the tube amp is a tool which does indeed get used in its distorted regimes.
But when that sound gets to YOU, the very last thing you would EVER want to do is add MORE distortion to it. You'll have some, because no sound production system is distortion free (the speakers are the worst culprit, followed by the stylus if you use vinyl) but man, you want that to be as near not-a-damn-bit-more as you can manage. Otherwise, your ear will shit in your auditory cortex and crown it with audio battery acid. Hate and discontent everywhere in your mind.
So, no. 1000 times no. Tube amps sound like transistor amps in hifi setups unless someone has completely screwed up your installation, or your ears.
Having gone that far, some caveats: That noise floor thing I mentioned, that's one. Lousy tube amps often hiss like angry snakes. If so, get rid of that POS (or at least try new tubes, and/or have someone replace the capacitors and old carbon resistors in your "classic" pride and joy.) Next, damping factor: For bass, a transistor amp may do a lot better, depending on your speaker systems. This is because transformer coupled outputs from a tube amp (these are typical) can't control the inductive kickback from a moving coil speaker as precisely and decisively as a direct coupled transistor amp can. However, from the tube days, there are speaker systems that were designed with this in mind, and which are extremely well behaved re inductive kickback, and so the end result is similar. This is a multi-variable issue (amp+speaker), and one that takes some knowledge to waltz around satisfactorily. So there's that. Finally, tubes are more likely to be microphonic; in a really high power system, that can cause feedback, which is intolerable; but the (good?) news is, there are very few hifi tube systems with that kind of whip-ass.
You like tube amps, I have no argument with you. I like them too, and I own some great ones. Plus, they glow in the dark, which appeals to my batlike nature.:) But when you say they sound different or better, just, no. Not unless something's been done very wrong, or something is broken.
If you want primo sound reproduction, the place to put your do
Which all doesn't matter since speakers don't exactly have 120dB range either
No.
Vinyl's dynamic range is about 70 dB on its best, never-been-played before, coming to you on monstrously expensive equipment, precision-mastered day. IOW, you almost certainly don't own any vinyl that is that good, and if you've played it even once, it's not that good anymore, anyway.
A CD's dynamic range is 90 dB until the disc itself fails, and most any CD player will give that to you, or very close to it (buy a good CD player, it's easy and inexpensive to do.)
A good amp/preamp combo can beat 100 dB easily these days (actually since about the late 1970's), so that's not an issue.
Your ear's dynamic range is about 120 dB from threshold of audibility to onset of pain.
The dynamic range of a properly designed, good-sized, mid line (handwaves... $500-$1000/speaker) moving coil multi-driver speaker system (pretty traditional stuff) often reaches 95-100 dB (in an anechoic chamber, at one meter... not your environment, but you still get what you need with a CD.) Tip: You can get some AWESOME classic speaker systems on EBay these days for a fraction of what they're worth.
Bottom line is that a CD player, a decent amp, moderate or better speaker systems, and you can have the whole 90 dB dynamic range of your CD. You'll need a good listening environment (quiet, mainly -- and quieter than you're imagining right now, most likely) and it's not a bad idea to have had a pro control the reflections, either, but it can certainly be done and on a reasonable budget, too -- more than reasonable if you love music, as opposed to just listen to it.
Additional tip: The higher the noise level in your listening environment, the more you have to turn the audio up so that the lowest sound exceeds the noise level. Let's say the noise level in your room is 40 db; then the 90 dB, to be all useful, has to start at 40 and reach 130, which you will hate, your ears will bleed, and you'll probably get arrested to boot. If you can afford the monster gear to hit those SPLs, which most of us cannot. There are limits to how quiet you can get it: your heartbeat, breathing, etc. set a permanent low-limit you can't defeat, even with headphones.
But. You get the ambient noise down, and then your 90 dB can "sit on" a lower starting point, and you can have the quietest sound, much quieter and still hear it, and the loudest sound at something under ear-bleedery. It takes some knowledge and planning, but again, it actually is 100% doable, and if you can't manage it, there are consultants who can. They live for that stuff.
...what makes Vinyl the perfect DRM is that it starts out degraded. Far less open dynamic range (not to mention a dynamic range that depends on the amount of data you're trying to pack onto the surface), concomitant shorter playing times, lower signal to noise ratio, poorer channel separation, less resistant to injury and corruption by everything from dust to hair to poor tracking angle, improper tracking force, wow, flutter, warping, groove wear, non-linearities in the stylus coil assemblies, inherent vulnerability to acoustic feedback, and in almost every case, low frequency limits you *can* sense, and soon-to-be-work-off high frequency capacities that you can't sense, but which won't matter if you simply play it a few times in a row, as you'll destroy the fine detail as the tiny, steep modulations in the vinyl haven't had time to recover (spring back into place and recover their elasticity) from the last time the stylus slammed into it, so they will instead, erode.
Of course you do have room for better album art and liner detail/notes, and you just can't knock what came with Cheech and Chong's Big Bambu, truly a watermark event in consumer relations.
And don't even get me started on the tube mythologies.
What this boils down to in the audio sense, in all cases except for two exceptions -- when you're playing vinyl you simply don't have a digital source for or when the digital source has been compressed and the vinyl hasn't -- is that consumers have been duped by Audiophile mythology. Badly duped.
There's every reason to have a turntable in your system, as high-performance as your budget can stand, so you can manage those two exceptions. No point in depriving yourself of something just because there's no adequate digital version. But barring those use cases, if your ears are actually working, you want a CD or better.
signed (Musician, music lover, engineer, recording engineer), me.
PS: You want to hear what a CD is actually capable of (and so also learn what crappy recording techniques and mastering houses have been cheating you out of), go get yourself a few CDs from TELARC, and listen on a good system. No vinyl on the planet can even come close -- and that's just how it should be. Why don't all CDs (and up) sound like that? The vast majority of it can be attributed to bad recording practice and far too much compression (but I repeat myself.) Google "Loudness wars" and learn the ins and outs. It's both fascinating and sad.
PPS: Not associated with TELARC, except they've gotten a lot of my money already, and are going to get more.:)
The core is already dozens of times faster than memory
It isn't, though, except for integer operations and tossing things around. Floating point core elements have a ways to go yet to get to single cycle for everything, and so spreading math among cores still saves time. OS folk like Linus may tend to think in terms of byte-to-BusSize manipulation. A lot of us deal with more nuanced data and operations. I *guarantee* you that a multicore processor will chew up properly designed image manipulation tasks a good deal faster than a single core will, and more flexibly (and more system-friendly) than a GPU can too, although slower for ops that fit in the GPU's memory and for which it offers competence. Software defined radio also makes terrific use of multiple cores, for instance here, a 3 GHz system with 8 cores is mostly free to do other stuff, and a system with one core running at the same speed is about 90% utilized, which doesn't leave enough horsepower to do much else. Whereas with the 8-core, I can run the SDR and do whatever the heck I want. Then there's the "what do you mean by 'core'" question. Does the core have an FPU, or is it one of those profoundly crippled integer-only units? Does the core actually share memory (and therefore memory bandwidth) with other cores, or does it have its own pool of RAM? Is eco throttling choking it half to death? And so on.
Having 1000 cores all waiting for 3,000 microseconds while the hard drive rotates to the other side of the platter
What is this "hard drive" thing you describe? Doesn't everyone use boards with terabytes of RAM for near-term storage?
Seriously, though, we all know (well, the ones who have considered it) that's exactly where we're going. SSDs as they stand today are just the tip of the iceberg; you want to know what's coming, instantiate a ram disk on your machine and run some benchies with it. And when we get to real RAM based storage, or anything of similar speed (or perhaps better... memristors?), we won't have wanted CPU development to have been sitting on laurels planted in a garden made of dead-slow storage in the interim.
Having 1000 cores all waiting for 3,000 microseconds while the hard drive rotates to the other side of the platter does not improve performance over 4 cores waiting.
True enough, but of course, that's not what happens, so... Effectively -- of course they can and do switch roles when memory is shared -- one is monitoring your ethernet, several are kicking in and out of httpd threads and/or processes, and so on for hundreds of OS tasks, and if you're like me, more than a few users tasks as well. For every task within a process that isn't hidebound by disk (and there are already a lot of them) having an additional available core is a very worthy thing. And when cores are tied up waiting for high level math operations, memory is (more) free relative to the needs of the available cores, and things simply run soother, sooner. There's a lot of handwaving in there because of the complexity of caching and lookahead and so on, but the bottom line is in my 8 core machine, I can do a lot more than in my 2-core machine, both have the same amount of memory and run at the same speed. And I apologize for the mangling of terminology. I think the point remains clear:
I get the feeling that the programmers who are finding it difficult to find work at the moment are those with mediocre skills
Well, enjoy that feeling. It's worth every penny you paid for it.
As for Musk, he's a big corporate player. Calling him a "programmer" these days is pretty silly. Using him to justify outsourcing basically the majority of programming jobs is also pretty silly.
Note that my employer isn't farming out jobs to foreigners because they're trying to cut costs, but because it is genuinely difficult to find the skills
Yes, it does become difficult if "too old, too unhealthy, no degree, overqualified, wrong state, bad credit" are used as stacked pre-filters. But to argue that unemployed programmers in the US are "mediocre" isn't just silly, it's ridiculous.
...when every programmer (and tech support person, and manufacturing person) in the US can get a job, that's the time for US operations to be looking for foreign help.
But since age, health, formal schooling, in-country location, and credit score are widely and consistently used to deny highly skilled US programmers jobs -- I am very confident in saying that Mr. Graham has not even come close to identifying the "programmer problem" from the POV of actual US programmers. All he's trying to do here is save a buck, while screwing US programmers in the process.
Do it his way, and the US economy will suffer even further at the middle class level as decent jobs go directly over our heads overseas, while, as per usual, corporations thrive.
This is exactly the kind of corporate perfidy that's been going on for some time. Graham should be ashamed. He represents our problem. Not any imaginary lack of US based skills.
If the main text of a religion isn't a reliable guidebook to that religion, how can we determine if anything is?
Obviously, we can't.
What made you think we could?
All major (and most minor) religions present huge diversity. Within Christianity, the bible is taken as everything from vague metaphor to the "inerrant word of God." The Koran for Islam, the same. Buddhist practice ranges from meditative to non, from vegetarian to non, from rigidly scientific to the most laughable crystal-gazing nonsense you've ever heard of. New agers.... that's a basket so broad I don't even have a clue as to what it really means, although I have to say, I've rarely come away from someone's description of their new age ideas thinking "wow, that made sense." OK, actually, never. But I figure it could happen.:)
In addition to actual sect differences, there are practitioner differences, and they range all the way from non-believers who are there for the social aspect, to rigid adherents to every jot and tittle in every book (and some, like the Catholics, have quite a few books.)
For my part, I figure, if I want to know what someone thinks, just ask them. Unless I have specific relevant evidence, I don't assume people fit into standardized boxes. I have found that to very rarely be true.
Needless to say, by disagreeing, I mark myself as an un-person.
Needless, pointless, and untrue. Someone else may so choose to regard you; you, however, are not that at all, and anyone who takes the attitude that you are, as you put it, an "unperson", is solely responsible for that attitude. You're still you, just as worthy as ever.
Consider the source, soldier on. Defy invalid social norms.
Some things are just not done, and are socially unacceptable this is one of them.
Socially unacceptable is one thing. And the appropriate response from you when faced with something you identify as such is also social: adjust your respect, relationship(s) and commentary according to the social cues you are given.
Relying on coercion and/or violence exerted by your government so you can assure that the general social environment is only populated by speech you approve of is something else entirely. It reeks of abject failure on your part, and on the part of your legislators. Such government-based active repression is one of the very few things that is more despicable than intentionally offensive speech presented without even a suggestion of humor.
> But as an athiest, my very existence is 'offensive' to muslims.
I'm an atheist as well. And I am aware that some Muslims proactively take offense because of my lack of belief.
However, you should be aware that of the five pillars of Islam, none say or imply one word about "hating atheists." That's just crap out of the Koran, which is a mish-mosh of uncorrelated and unordered quotes. Only fanatics take the violent sections of the Koran seriously. Not that there aren't enough fanatics to go around, of course.
> Are you suggesting that I should commit suicide to appease the Muslims?
Not in the least. I wasn't suggesting anyone should commit suicide, or in any way alter who or what they are. These are not things that give offense. You have not chosen to be atheist in order to give offense, have you? I presume you're atheist because you find that to be a comfortable state of mind, one that correlates well with what you observe of the world around you. Nothing to do with giving offense at all. I'm not wrong, am I? If I am, please let me know... that's a whole 'nuther bag of wolverines.
Simply being (existing as) atheist is not giving offense. That is the same as the case where someone is simply "being atheist" or "being Christian" or "being Muslim" or "being a rock collector."
When such provokes an "offended" response, we are merely seeing examples of the common practice by muddy thinkers of taking offense for any, or no, sane reason...
> Go Fuck Yourself...Just as you have here. Brilliant to have so cleverly put yourself in exactly the same unreasonable club with those nasty, hateful, offended Islamists, isn't it?:)
No. Offense can surely be given. But trying to magically legislate it away is a horrific, cowardly, hubris-ridden mistake. Offense arises because of difference in opinion and grasp of fact, intentional or not.
Because of this, it can and will always arise, no matter how narrow you choke down the channel of discourse, unless or until all have the same opinions and grasp of facts, which, one hopes, will never, ever come about.
The most productive course is to try not to give offense, and if received, to assess it and take value (warning, insight, stance, new information) from it if possible — otherwise, let it go.
Restricting opinion by legal means is one of the worst ideas ever. Offense is not a legitimate mitigating factor for censorship and repression. When enacted into law as justification for anything, what it tells us is that we need new legislators, because the ones we have demonstrated fundamental incompetence.
No one has the "right to not be offended." Being offended is subjective. It has everything to do with you as an individual, or as part of a collective, or a group, or a society, or a community; it varies due to your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs, your upbringing, your education; what offends one person or group (collective, society, community) may not offend another; and in the final analysis, it requires one person to attempt to read the mind of other persons they do not know in order to anticipate whether a specific action will cause offense in the mind of another. And no, codifying an action in law is not in any way sufficient... it is well established that not even lawyers can know the law well enough to anticipate what is legal, and what is not. Sane law relies on the basic idea that we try not to risk or cause harm to the bodies, finances and reputations of others without them consenting and being aware of the risks. Law that bans something based upon the idea that some group simply finds the behavior objectionable is the very worst kind of law, utterly devoid of consideration or others, while absolutely permeated in self-indulgence.
Conversely, when people are truly harmed (not just offended) without their informed consent (and legitimate defense is not the cause), then the matter is one that should arguably be considered for law. Otherwise, no.
It sure as hell is the property of the person who created it.
No. It's not. I can prove it.
You think of X. You're happily sitting there thinking it's your "property." But Joe also thought of this. Do you imagine you now own "half" the "property"? Or that you both "own" all of the "property"? What if it's so obvious that everyone thinks of it at the same time? Whose "property" is it then?
You see, it's not property. It's an idea. A flux of neural activity that you cannot prevent from happening in someone else's head. You can certainly pretend it's property, but none of logic or the legal system or the constitution supports that position, so I really don't see any reason to take your position seriously.
Because it's just an idea. It's not property. Also because that's the ultimate intent of our system. Patent owners get a short-term monopoly, society gets the idea after that. I'm trying to formulate a way that the benefit to society arrives sooner, as does at least some of the reward for the inventor -- without in the process creating a coerced monopoly at all.
To your perceived actual value of the invention?
No, not mine. I am suggesting first as an estimate by a group of people who understand the technology and the relevant market(s) at the moment, pre-release, then later on, after its actual value has been demonstrated by adoption, in a much more precise manner.
That business that starts ABCs is a complete strawman. I didn't say anything about legality. I'm proposing an alternate means of reward than monopoly. Also, the intent of patents was not at all what you say. The intention of patents was to obtain the benefits of invention for all of society, and in order to do that, a temporary monopoly on some rights in granted. Learn your history. Lastly, don't think to lecture me about business. I've run a few, still own three, and actually know a thing or two about profit, market and invention, among other things. From the constitution:
[The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the point. Not your nonsense about "the person who invented the product or sold the invention to makes the profits and not someone who had nothing to do with it." Profit is used as the motive to get people to invent, so society (in other words, yes, people who had nothing to do with it) will benefit. Invention isn't protected in order that individuals profit. That's ass-backwards.
Are you willing to share 10% of your salary with homeless people?
Income, not salary. And we (the SO and I) do. Except it's more than 10%. And the majority of that is consequent to my own creative output, none of which was facilitated by patent monopoly. Presently, I give away *all* of my new creative output. Some of which is quite sophisticated; but none of which is anything someone else could not have done, either. I don't pretend to own ideas, even the ones I had first as far as I've been able to determine. I enjoy invention; I don't think invention confers ownership. I respect invention; I think it represents a great force for good. Monopoly, in my opinion, does not. Monopoly seems to me to be a force for retarding progress.
Exactly my point. How things "are" is entirely dependent upon what your own challenges and successes are, and whether they are increasing or decreasing.
Nothing I said in any way denies the advance of technology or the shift of cultural values. My point is, what that means is relative to the individual. Your world view is not mine, and vice-versa. It's just ridiculous for me to say the world is better, or worse, for you. Only you can say that.
One person will rave about the positive aspects of kids having cellphones. Another will mourn the childhood exploration and freedom that the face-in-device, helicopter-parented youth culture has lost. One will rave about television, next person points out that the "gift" of Fox News and the rest is no favor to accuracy, education or sanity. A hundred years ago, the pledge of allegiance hadn't been suborned by the religious in violation of the 1st amendment. A hundred years ago, female and male roles were very different. Some of those changes may seem positive, some quite negative. A hundred years ago, you could buy a home on the wages of pretty much any job. Today, it is difficult to do without very, very expensive loans from third parties. 100 years ago, one could make many personal choices that are forbidden today. Marijuana, cocaine, etc. Just over a hundred years ago, the state began interfering with the choice to enter into a polygamous relationship, and we're still stuck with that coercion. You mentioned jury nullification, and you did so as if less of it was a good idea -- but to me, it's about the only power remaining that can save citizens from an overzealous and out of control justice system.
Many things have changed, and everyone can have an opinion on every change. It's all very much relative and personal. There's no way to say "things are much better overall" because you can't obtain or synthesize an "overall" viewpoint.
Yes, some things are improving. But others are not. And to say that the things these people picked define "the world" is nothing more than hubris.
There are many things that are not improving. Some of them bode extremely poorly for the future. Climate may be one of those (or not... we will see.) Loss of privacy is another. Militarization of police is another. Constitutional erosion is another. A continuously increasing burden of badly crafted and anti-liberty legislation is another. The US justice system is a horror show from one end to the other. We're presently building a mostly unemployable permanent lower class by the continuing and increased implementation of never forgive, never forget social patterns and supporting technology. The vast majority of wealth has become concentrated in the hands of a very few people and corporations, and those same people and corporations have assumed de-facto control of our political system everywhere it does something that matters to them.
Depending on where you sit in regard to these issues, and others, your world may be sucking harder on an ever-increasing curve.
The world is what it is. Happy-assed optimism isn't called for outside of your own situation, and only then if that's how you see it.
A person's property is their property. No committee should be able to decide how much a patent (or any other property or possession) is worth and force a sale.
I reject the entire concept that an idea can be your property. The only thing about an idea that is of personal significance is that you might have it first. You can't prevent someone else from having the same idea, even if you never open your mouth about your idea. Because it's not inherently yours; it's just a product of thinking. Property can really only be physical.
This is exactly the same as you liking chocolate, and then telling me I can't like chocolate for X years because you liked it first. Ideas are a product of the mind, and that's about all you can say about them in terms of where they come from. That doesn't lead to "property", in fact, since we all have minds, it leads precisely the other way. But the reason that monetizing ideas is encouraged is because some of them have the potential to advance society enough that it is thought that a period of monopoly is enough to justify everyone having access to that idea a bit down the road. The whole point is to make that idea available to everyone.
Right now, society grants temporary monopolies for the one who seems to have been first to describe the idea (although they're not very good at determining that, they can't be.) You'll note that even under the current system, society does not create a situation where the idea is "yours", that is, it's not your property. All they're doing is saying, you lay out the idea in detail, we'll let you have a limited time to monetize it. After that, anyone can -- so it's not your property. What you get is an opportunity, one that comes at everyone else's disadvantage, and which can (and does) lead to zero progress at all if you sit on it. In which case, thanks for retarding progress we could have had, eh?
I think offering a monopoly was a poor choice. If you have an idea, you should be able to do whatever with it. If I have or use the same idea, same thing. Being first shouldn't be worth much -- not a monopoly. Just enough to incentivize having ideas. Actually selling ideas -- that's where they have real value. So to maximize value to society, we should let anyone sell who feels they can make money doing so.
There are lots of opinions on this. Now you know mine, that's all.
The main thing wrong with software patents is the nonobviousness bar.
It's bloody obvious you can write just about anything you're competent to write and that is possible to implement. That's the whole point of a generally programmable architecture. To then say, "look, ma, I wrote an algorithm!" and THEN expect that no one else is allowed to write the same thing... the only thing obvious about that is that it is stupid.
Digital hardware is not very different software
That's one case of doing digital hardware, and it doesn't address the 99% of the realm of other hardware. See, the problem here -- unlike software -- is that you don't get to make a very effective choice about the amount of resources thrown at the problem. I can attack the same software problem as a large corporation and even come out ahead, and faster. With hardware, that's not true. There are all kinds of limits from certifications (FCC, UL, etc.) to lab equipment to mechanical design, assembly, testing, prototyping, packaging, distribution and so on; patents exist in order to encourage the investments required to address those costs. For software, such encouragement is unnecessary. It doesn't face the same problems unless you choose that it does (mainly by hiring less effective programmers and/or constraining programmer options (like choice of language) and/or putting layers of management in the way of progress.)
doesn't the current patent system already do that?
No. The current patent system enforces a monopoly, and then you get to earn whatever. I'm suggesting that if the invention is found worthy, the government immediately pay the inventor based on an initial estimation, and then revise that upwards if called for when presented with sales and social data ten years later, and anyone can use the invention. So the inventor gets rewarded; the risks of commercializing land equally on everyone's shoulders. If the invention is worthy, that is, it can be sold at a profit, that'll probably happen. If not, well, phbbbt.
That's stupid, because customers will always low-ball what they want to pay
That's why the revisit. Show the data, get the pay.
The price of any goods/service should be set by the seller, not the buyer.
This isn't about the buyer or the seller or the manufacturer. This is about the inventor. We want things invented. We don't want monopolies. So if I invent a widget, I get paid for inventing it. Anything from $10 to whatever they think it's worth. After ten years, it turns out this thing was used *everywhere* (say it's in cellphones) then I get more. But that more came from legit sales of the device (taxed), a tax that is built into its cost and doesn't make it any harder for one little guy to make it , or a big corporation. Given that the sales are known, so is the recompense.
nobody knows how much a patent is worth beforehand.
Estimates can be made -- we do that kind of thing all the time -- and the revisit can ensure that the actual worth is eventually related to the reward.
It could be worthless, or a few bucks, or billions.
No invention is worth billions. Monopolies on inventions are worth billions. And we should get rid of those. Then if you can make billions off of sales of devices, fine. But everyone gets a chance at it, and the inventor is already compensated.
You just want to create a system where the patent holders are royally screwed and you can get their ideas for cheap.
No. That's nonsense. Use your head. I want the inventor(s) paid well, and I want it to be related to the actual value of the invention. What I want to eliminate is
Software patents are utter bullshit from word one. They should just go away and stay away.
Hardware patents are something else, but it's pretty clear they are being *very* poorly managed. I don't even like saying it, but I'm afraid I agree with you: they do more harm than good now.
We need an entirely new model of encouraging invention. Trade secret is useful in providing a reasonable profit window and establishment of precedence in the marketplace (the only way to go with software, as far as I'm concerned) as the window you get correlates well with the complexity of what you've done, but has its limits when we're talking hardware.
Perhaps a way for society to pay for an invention, and once that's been done, it goes right into the "available to everyone" pool. Panels of experts setting perceived value and an immediate payment being made, followed by a revisit ten years later to determine how it all went, with extra reward possible if the invention's impact was underestimated?
Look at me, suggesting government committees. Oy. I should go bang my head on a table.
But damn, we *really* need to clean out the drains. Patents are the disgusting glop that are making the system run slower and slower, while getting legal sewage all over everyone involved. The only consistent winners here are the plumbers (lawyers.)
The physical effects of a major asteroid/meteorite strike should duplicate a nuclear war fairly well, other than the radiation and mutants part.
Plenty of ionizing radiation from an impact like that.
But aside from that, a major impact would very likely crack the crust of the planet, and shroud any part that wasn't outright baked in sunlight-blocking suspended particulates. We could, entirely reasonably, expect the human race to survive a major nuclear war. There have already been 500+ megatons of nuclear weapons detonated in ~2100 separate events, and it'd be stretching it considerably to say it affected us globally.
A war would of course destroy a lot of infrastructure, but there would still be a lot of people wandering around afterwards, and plenty of opportunities to survive at various levels. Not so much with a major asteroid or comet strike.
If you have a 17 mile in diameter ~round asteroid that hits us at 20 km/sec, that impact would release 1,000,000,000 megatons (not a typo.) In terms of global survivability... Perhaps for sulphur-matabolizing colonies of organisms that live in the dark at the bottom of the sea. Although one would think that any life-supporting vent is likely to have a pretty severe "hiccup" as a consequence of such an impact.
Eating just the right amount will allow you to reach optimum blood sugar levels for creative programming. However, be warned that eating too much will probably put you to sleep.
Please watch this space for the introduction of our follow-up product: Programmer's Spaghetti (with Object-Oriented Meatballs)*
*Garlic levels tailored for maximum personal isolation. Do not use if in a relationship or if expecting a job interview. May cause immediate termination of relations, arms-length disease, and acne. Not suitable for homeopathic dilution. May enhance programming mania. Use with caution.
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It shouldn't be. Not unless either your tube amp, or your transistor amp, in a word, sucks, anyway.
Tube amps and transistor amps differ from each other in sound reproduction not at all in the linear zone used to reproduce music. A tube amp may have a slightly higher noise floor (and then again, it may not... but really low noise tube amps will cost ya.)
Where tube and transistor amps differ significantly (meaning, to your ear) are in what happens when you drive them so hard that they can no longer linearly reproduce the signal you're feeding them. A naive transistor amp will hard clip, generating a most unpleasant bunch of harmonics, along with a distorted version of the original signal. A tube amp (given an adequate power supply) will clip softly (by comparison), rounding off the signal instead of cutting the tops into flatlines or droopy reverse trapezoids, and this is much easier on the ear.
Now here is the thing: Anyone who likes music, much less loves it, would never, and I seriously mean never, not just "mostly wouldn't", manage music reproduction in such a way as to have our tube or transistor amplifiers distort. Because the second we do so, differences notwithstanding, the music would have to sound better to reach up through the resulting dreck to the standard of "sounding like shit."
So tube/transistor, difference meme, WTF? This WTF: For a musician, playing a single instrument, and usually that means an instrument producing a relatively simple waveform, the tube distortion *does* add interest (think electric blues guitar for the classic example), and so for the musician, the tube amp is a tool which does indeed get used in its distorted regimes.
But when that sound gets to YOU, the very last thing you would EVER want to do is add MORE distortion to it. You'll have some, because no sound production system is distortion free (the speakers are the worst culprit, followed by the stylus if you use vinyl) but man, you want that to be as near not-a-damn-bit-more as you can manage. Otherwise, your ear will shit in your auditory cortex and crown it with audio battery acid. Hate and discontent everywhere in your mind.
So, no. 1000 times no. Tube amps sound like transistor amps in hifi setups unless someone has completely screwed up your installation, or your ears.
Having gone that far, some caveats: That noise floor thing I mentioned, that's one. Lousy tube amps often hiss like angry snakes. If so, get rid of that POS (or at least try new tubes, and/or have someone replace the capacitors and old carbon resistors in your "classic" pride and joy.) Next, damping factor: For bass, a transistor amp may do a lot better, depending on your speaker systems. This is because transformer coupled outputs from a tube amp (these are typical) can't control the inductive kickback from a moving coil speaker as precisely and decisively as a direct coupled transistor amp can. However, from the tube days, there are speaker systems that were designed with this in mind, and which are extremely well behaved re inductive kickback, and so the end result is similar. This is a multi-variable issue (amp+speaker), and one that takes some knowledge to waltz around satisfactorily. So there's that. Finally, tubes are more likely to be microphonic; in a really high power system, that can cause feedback, which is intolerable; but the (good?) news is, there are very few hifi tube systems with that kind of whip-ass.
You like tube amps, I have no argument with you. I like them too, and I own some great ones. Plus, they glow in the dark, which appeals to my batlike nature. :) But when you say they sound different or better, just, no. Not unless something's been done very wrong, or something is broken.
If you want primo sound reproduction, the place to put your do
No.
Vinyl's dynamic range is about 70 dB on its best, never-been-played before, coming to you on monstrously expensive equipment, precision-mastered day. IOW, you almost certainly don't own any vinyl that is that good, and if you've played it even once, it's not that good anymore, anyway.
A CD's dynamic range is 90 dB until the disc itself fails, and most any CD player will give that to you, or very close to it (buy a good CD player, it's easy and inexpensive to do.)
A good amp/preamp combo can beat 100 dB easily these days (actually since about the late 1970's), so that's not an issue.
Your ear's dynamic range is about 120 dB from threshold of audibility to onset of pain.
The dynamic range of a properly designed, good-sized, mid line (handwaves... $500-$1000/speaker) moving coil multi-driver speaker system (pretty traditional stuff) often reaches 95-100 dB (in an anechoic chamber, at one meter... not your environment, but you still get what you need with a CD.) Tip: You can get some AWESOME classic speaker systems on EBay these days for a fraction of what they're worth.
Bottom line is that a CD player, a decent amp, moderate or better speaker systems, and you can have the whole 90 dB dynamic range of your CD. You'll need a good listening environment (quiet, mainly -- and quieter than you're imagining right now, most likely) and it's not a bad idea to have had a pro control the reflections, either, but it can certainly be done and on a reasonable budget, too -- more than reasonable if you love music, as opposed to just listen to it.
Additional tip: The higher the noise level in your listening environment, the more you have to turn the audio up so that the lowest sound exceeds the noise level. Let's say the noise level in your room is 40 db; then the 90 dB, to be all useful, has to start at 40 and reach 130, which you will hate, your ears will bleed, and you'll probably get arrested to boot. If you can afford the monster gear to hit those SPLs, which most of us cannot. There are limits to how quiet you can get it: your heartbeat, breathing, etc. set a permanent low-limit you can't defeat, even with headphones.
But. You get the ambient noise down, and then your 90 dB can "sit on" a lower starting point, and you can have the quietest sound, much quieter and still hear it, and the loudest sound at something under ear-bleedery. It takes some knowledge and planning, but again, it actually is 100% doable, and if you can't manage it, there are consultants who can. They live for that stuff.
Yes, you're quite correct, I forgot that one, and it's a very big one.
Kudos to you for catching it.
Of course you do have room for better album art and liner detail/notes, and you just can't knock what came with Cheech and Chong's Big Bambu, truly a watermark event in consumer relations.
And don't even get me started on the tube mythologies.
What this boils down to in the audio sense, in all cases except for two exceptions -- when you're playing vinyl you simply don't have a digital source for or when the digital source has been compressed and the vinyl hasn't -- is that consumers have been duped by Audiophile mythology. Badly duped.
There's every reason to have a turntable in your system, as high-performance as your budget can stand, so you can manage those two exceptions. No point in depriving yourself of something just because there's no adequate digital version. But barring those use cases, if your ears are actually working, you want a CD or better.
signed (Musician, music lover, engineer, recording engineer), me.
PS: You want to hear what a CD is actually capable of (and so also learn what crappy recording techniques and mastering houses have been cheating you out of), go get yourself a few CDs from TELARC, and listen on a good system. No vinyl on the planet can even come close -- and that's just how it should be. Why don't all CDs (and up) sound like that? The vast majority of it can be attributed to bad recording practice and far too much compression (but I repeat myself.) Google "Loudness wars" and learn the ins and outs. It's both fascinating and sad.
PPS: Not associated with TELARC, except they've gotten a lot of my money already, and are going to get more. :)
It isn't, though, except for integer operations and tossing things around. Floating point core elements have a ways to go yet to get to single cycle for everything, and so spreading math among cores still saves time. OS folk like Linus may tend to think in terms of byte-to-BusSize manipulation. A lot of us deal with more nuanced data and operations. I *guarantee* you that a multicore processor will chew up properly designed image manipulation tasks a good deal faster than a single core will, and more flexibly (and more system-friendly) than a GPU can too, although slower for ops that fit in the GPU's memory and for which it offers competence. Software defined radio also makes terrific use of multiple cores, for instance here, a 3 GHz system with 8 cores is mostly free to do other stuff, and a system with one core running at the same speed is about 90% utilized, which doesn't leave enough horsepower to do much else. Whereas with the 8-core, I can run the SDR and do whatever the heck I want. Then there's the "what do you mean by 'core'" question. Does the core have an FPU, or is it one of those profoundly crippled integer-only units? Does the core actually share memory (and therefore memory bandwidth) with other cores, or does it have its own pool of RAM? Is eco throttling choking it half to death? And so on.
What is this "hard drive" thing you describe? Doesn't everyone use boards with terabytes of RAM for near-term storage?
Seriously, though, we all know (well, the ones who have considered it) that's exactly where we're going. SSDs as they stand today are just the tip of the iceberg; you want to know what's coming, instantiate a ram disk on your machine and run some benchies with it. And when we get to real RAM based storage, or anything of similar speed (or perhaps better... memristors?), we won't have wanted CPU development to have been sitting on laurels planted in a garden made of dead-slow storage in the interim.
True enough, but of course, that's not what happens, so... Effectively -- of course they can and do switch roles when memory is shared -- one is monitoring your ethernet, several are kicking in and out of httpd threads and/or processes, and so on for hundreds of OS tasks, and if you're like me, more than a few users tasks as well. For every task within a process that isn't hidebound by disk (and there are already a lot of them) having an additional available core is a very worthy thing. And when cores are tied up waiting for high level math operations, memory is (more) free relative to the needs of the available cores, and things simply run soother, sooner. There's a lot of handwaving in there because of the complexity of caching and lookahead and so on, but the bottom line is in my 8 core machine, I can do a lot more than in my 2-core machine, both have the same amount of memory and run at the same speed. And I apologize for the mangling of terminology. I think the point remains clear:
Multiple cores are a great thing.
Well, enjoy that feeling. It's worth every penny you paid for it.
As for Musk, he's a big corporate player. Calling him a "programmer" these days is pretty silly. Using him to justify outsourcing basically the majority of programming jobs is also pretty silly.
Yes, it does become difficult if "too old, too unhealthy, no degree, overqualified, wrong state, bad credit" are used as stacked pre-filters. But to argue that unemployed programmers in the US are "mediocre" isn't just silly, it's ridiculous.
...when every programmer (and tech support person, and manufacturing person) in the US can get a job, that's the time for US operations to be looking for foreign help.
But since age, health, formal schooling, in-country location, and credit score are widely and consistently used to deny highly skilled US programmers jobs -- I am very confident in saying that Mr. Graham has not even come close to identifying the "programmer problem" from the POV of actual US programmers. All he's trying to do here is save a buck, while screwing US programmers in the process.
Do it his way, and the US economy will suffer even further at the middle class level as decent jobs go directly over our heads overseas, while, as per usual, corporations thrive.
This is exactly the kind of corporate perfidy that's been going on for some time. Graham should be ashamed. He represents our problem. Not any imaginary lack of US based skills.
Obviously, we can't.
What made you think we could?
All major (and most minor) religions present huge diversity. Within Christianity, the bible is taken as everything from vague metaphor to the "inerrant word of God." The Koran for Islam, the same. Buddhist practice ranges from meditative to non, from vegetarian to non, from rigidly scientific to the most laughable crystal-gazing nonsense you've ever heard of. New agers.... that's a basket so broad I don't even have a clue as to what it really means, although I have to say, I've rarely come away from someone's description of their new age ideas thinking "wow, that made sense." OK, actually, never. But I figure it could happen. :)
In addition to actual sect differences, there are practitioner differences, and they range all the way from non-believers who are there for the social aspect, to rigid adherents to every jot and tittle in every book (and some, like the Catholics, have quite a few books.)
For my part, I figure, if I want to know what someone thinks, just ask them. Unless I have specific relevant evidence, I don't assume people fit into standardized boxes. I have found that to very rarely be true.
Yes? Well then...
Baldric... Bring me... The Black Russian!
Needless, pointless, and untrue. Someone else may so choose to regard you; you, however, are not that at all, and anyone who takes the attitude that you are, as you put it, an "unperson", is solely responsible for that attitude. You're still you, just as worthy as ever.
Consider the source, soldier on. Defy invalid social norms.
Socially unacceptable is one thing. And the appropriate response from you when faced with something you identify as such is also social: adjust your respect, relationship(s) and commentary according to the social cues you are given.
Relying on coercion and/or violence exerted by your government so you can assure that the general social environment is only populated by speech you approve of is something else entirely. It reeks of abject failure on your part, and on the part of your legislators. Such government-based active repression is one of the very few things that is more despicable than intentionally offensive speech presented without even a suggestion of humor.
> But as an athiest, my very existence is 'offensive' to muslims.
I'm an atheist as well. And I am aware that some Muslims proactively take offense because of my lack of belief.
However, you should be aware that of the five pillars of Islam, none say or imply one word about "hating atheists." That's just crap out of the Koran, which is a mish-mosh of uncorrelated and unordered quotes. Only fanatics take the violent sections of the Koran seriously. Not that there aren't enough fanatics to go around, of course.
> Are you suggesting that I should commit suicide to appease the Muslims?
Not in the least. I wasn't suggesting anyone should commit suicide, or in any way alter who or what they are. These are not things that give offense. You have not chosen to be atheist in order to give offense, have you? I presume you're atheist because you find that to be a comfortable state of mind, one that correlates well with what you observe of the world around you. Nothing to do with giving offense at all. I'm not wrong, am I? If I am, please let me know... that's a whole 'nuther bag of wolverines.
Simply being (existing as) atheist is not giving offense. That is the same as the case where someone is simply "being atheist" or "being Christian" or "being Muslim" or "being a rock collector."
When such provokes an "offended" response, we are merely seeing examples of the common practice by muddy thinkers of taking offense for any, or no, sane reason...
> Go Fuck Yourself ...Just as you have here. Brilliant to have so cleverly put yourself in exactly the same unreasonable club with those nasty, hateful, offended Islamists, isn't it? :)
No. Offense can surely be given. But trying to magically legislate it away is a horrific, cowardly, hubris-ridden mistake. Offense arises because of difference in opinion and grasp of fact, intentional or not.
Because of this, it can and will always arise, no matter how narrow you choke down the channel of discourse, unless or until all have the same opinions and grasp of facts, which, one hopes, will never, ever come about.
The most productive course is to try not to give offense, and if received, to assess it and take value (warning, insight, stance, new information) from it if possible — otherwise, let it go.
Restricting opinion by legal means is one of the worst ideas ever. Offense is not a legitimate mitigating factor for censorship and repression. When enacted into law as justification for anything, what it tells us is that we need new legislators, because the ones we have demonstrated fundamental incompetence.
No one has the "right to not be offended." Being offended is subjective. It has everything to do with you as an individual, or as part of a collective, or a group, or a society, or a community; it varies due to your moral conditioning, your religious beliefs, your upbringing, your education; what offends one person or group (collective, society, community) may not offend another; and in the final analysis, it requires one person to attempt to read the mind of other persons they do not know in order to anticipate whether a specific action will cause offense in the mind of another. And no, codifying an action in law is not in any way sufficient... it is well established that not even lawyers can know the law well enough to anticipate what is legal, and what is not. Sane law relies on the basic idea that we try not to risk or cause harm to the bodies, finances and reputations of others without them consenting and being aware of the risks. Law that bans something based upon the idea that some group simply finds the behavior objectionable is the very worst kind of law, utterly devoid of consideration or others, while absolutely permeated in self-indulgence.
Conversely, when people are truly harmed (not just offended) without their informed consent (and legitimate defense is not the cause), then the matter is one that should arguably be considered for law. Otherwise, no.
Oblig/meta: Orwell was an optimist
No. It's not. I can prove it.
You think of X. You're happily sitting there thinking it's your "property." But Joe also thought of this. Do you imagine you now own "half" the "property"? Or that you both "own" all of the "property"? What if it's so obvious that everyone thinks of it at the same time? Whose "property" is it then?
You see, it's not property. It's an idea. A flux of neural activity that you cannot prevent from happening in someone else's head. You can certainly pretend it's property, but none of logic or the legal system or the constitution supports that position, so I really don't see any reason to take your position seriously.
Because it's just an idea. It's not property. Also because that's the ultimate intent of our system. Patent owners get a short-term monopoly, society gets the idea after that. I'm trying to formulate a way that the benefit to society arrives sooner, as does at least some of the reward for the inventor -- without in the process creating a coerced monopoly at all.
No, not mine. I am suggesting first as an estimate by a group of people who understand the technology and the relevant market(s) at the moment, pre-release, then later on, after its actual value has been demonstrated by adoption, in a much more precise manner.
That business that starts ABCs is a complete strawman. I didn't say anything about legality. I'm proposing an alternate means of reward than monopoly. Also, the intent of patents was not at all what you say. The intention of patents was to obtain the benefits of invention for all of society, and in order to do that, a temporary monopoly on some rights in granted. Learn your history. Lastly, don't think to lecture me about business. I've run a few, still own three, and actually know a thing or two about profit, market and invention, among other things. From the constitution:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the point. Not your nonsense about "the person who invented the product or sold the invention to makes the profits and not someone who had nothing to do with it." Profit is used as the motive to get people to invent, so society (in other words, yes, people who had nothing to do with it) will benefit. Invention isn't protected in order that individuals profit. That's ass-backwards.
Income, not salary. And we (the SO and I) do. Except it's more than 10%. And the majority of that is consequent to my own creative output, none of which was facilitated by patent monopoly. Presently, I give away *all* of my new creative output. Some of which is quite sophisticated; but none of which is anything someone else could not have done, either. I don't pretend to own ideas, even the ones I had first as far as I've been able to determine. I enjoy invention; I don't think invention confers ownership. I respect invention; I think it represents a great force for good. Monopoly, in my opinion, does not. Monopoly seems to me to be a force for retarding progress.
Exactly my point. How things "are" is entirely dependent upon what your own challenges and successes are, and whether they are increasing or decreasing.
Nothing I said in any way denies the advance of technology or the shift of cultural values. My point is, what that means is relative to the individual. Your world view is not mine, and vice-versa. It's just ridiculous for me to say the world is better, or worse, for you. Only you can say that.
One person will rave about the positive aspects of kids having cellphones. Another will mourn the childhood exploration and freedom that the face-in-device, helicopter-parented youth culture has lost. One will rave about television, next person points out that the "gift" of Fox News and the rest is no favor to accuracy, education or sanity. A hundred years ago, the pledge of allegiance hadn't been suborned by the religious in violation of the 1st amendment. A hundred years ago, female and male roles were very different. Some of those changes may seem positive, some quite negative. A hundred years ago, you could buy a home on the wages of pretty much any job. Today, it is difficult to do without very, very expensive loans from third parties. 100 years ago, one could make many personal choices that are forbidden today. Marijuana, cocaine, etc. Just over a hundred years ago, the state began interfering with the choice to enter into a polygamous relationship, and we're still stuck with that coercion. You mentioned jury nullification, and you did so as if less of it was a good idea -- but to me, it's about the only power remaining that can save citizens from an overzealous and out of control justice system.
Many things have changed, and everyone can have an opinion on every change. It's all very much relative and personal. There's no way to say "things are much better overall" because you can't obtain or synthesize an "overall" viewpoint.
Yes, some things are improving. But others are not. And to say that the things these people picked define "the world" is nothing more than hubris.
There are many things that are not improving. Some of them bode extremely poorly for the future. Climate may be one of those (or not... we will see.) Loss of privacy is another. Militarization of police is another. Constitutional erosion is another. A continuously increasing burden of badly crafted and anti-liberty legislation is another. The US justice system is a horror show from one end to the other. We're presently building a mostly unemployable permanent lower class by the continuing and increased implementation of never forgive, never forget social patterns and supporting technology. The vast majority of wealth has become concentrated in the hands of a very few people and corporations, and those same people and corporations have assumed de-facto control of our political system everywhere it does something that matters to them.
Depending on where you sit in regard to these issues, and others, your world may be sucking harder on an ever-increasing curve.
The world is what it is. Happy-assed optimism isn't called for outside of your own situation, and only then if that's how you see it.
I reject the entire concept that an idea can be your property. The only thing about an idea that is of personal significance is that you might have it first. You can't prevent someone else from having the same idea, even if you never open your mouth about your idea. Because it's not inherently yours; it's just a product of thinking. Property can really only be physical.
This is exactly the same as you liking chocolate, and then telling me I can't like chocolate for X years because you liked it first. Ideas are a product of the mind, and that's about all you can say about them in terms of where they come from. That doesn't lead to "property", in fact, since we all have minds, it leads precisely the other way. But the reason that monetizing ideas is encouraged is because some of them have the potential to advance society enough that it is thought that a period of monopoly is enough to justify everyone having access to that idea a bit down the road. The whole point is to make that idea available to everyone.
Right now, society grants temporary monopolies for the one who seems to have been first to describe the idea (although they're not very good at determining that, they can't be.) You'll note that even under the current system, society does not create a situation where the idea is "yours", that is, it's not your property. All they're doing is saying, you lay out the idea in detail, we'll let you have a limited time to monetize it. After that, anyone can -- so it's not your property. What you get is an opportunity, one that comes at everyone else's disadvantage, and which can (and does) lead to zero progress at all if you sit on it. In which case, thanks for retarding progress we could have had, eh?
I think offering a monopoly was a poor choice. If you have an idea, you should be able to do whatever with it. If I have or use the same idea, same thing. Being first shouldn't be worth much -- not a monopoly. Just enough to incentivize having ideas. Actually selling ideas -- that's where they have real value. So to maximize value to society, we should let anyone sell who feels they can make money doing so.
There are lots of opinions on this. Now you know mine, that's all.
It's bloody obvious you can write just about anything you're competent to write and that is possible to implement. That's the whole point of a generally programmable architecture. To then say, "look, ma, I wrote an algorithm!" and THEN expect that no one else is allowed to write the same thing... the only thing obvious about that is that it is stupid.
That's one case of doing digital hardware, and it doesn't address the 99% of the realm of other hardware. See, the problem here -- unlike software -- is that you don't get to make a very effective choice about the amount of resources thrown at the problem. I can attack the same software problem as a large corporation and even come out ahead, and faster. With hardware, that's not true. There are all kinds of limits from certifications (FCC, UL, etc.) to lab equipment to mechanical design, assembly, testing, prototyping, packaging, distribution and so on; patents exist in order to encourage the investments required to address those costs. For software, such encouragement is unnecessary. It doesn't face the same problems unless you choose that it does (mainly by hiring less effective programmers and/or constraining programmer options (like choice of language) and/or putting layers of management in the way of progress.)
No. The current patent system enforces a monopoly, and then you get to earn whatever. I'm suggesting that if the invention is found worthy, the government immediately pay the inventor based on an initial estimation, and then revise that upwards if called for when presented with sales and social data ten years later, and anyone can use the invention. So the inventor gets rewarded; the risks of commercializing land equally on everyone's shoulders. If the invention is worthy, that is, it can be sold at a profit, that'll probably happen. If not, well, phbbbt.
That's why the revisit. Show the data, get the pay.
This isn't about the buyer or the seller or the manufacturer. This is about the inventor. We want things invented. We don't want monopolies. So if I invent a widget, I get paid for inventing it. Anything from $10 to whatever they think it's worth. After ten years, it turns out this thing was used *everywhere* (say it's in cellphones) then I get more. But that more came from legit sales of the device (taxed), a tax that is built into its cost and doesn't make it any harder for one little guy to make it , or a big corporation. Given that the sales are known, so is the recompense.
Estimates can be made -- we do that kind of thing all the time -- and the revisit can ensure that the actual worth is eventually related to the reward.
No invention is worth billions. Monopolies on inventions are worth billions. And we should get rid of those. Then if you can make billions off of sales of devices, fine. But everyone gets a chance at it, and the inventor is already compensated.
No. That's nonsense. Use your head. I want the inventor(s) paid well, and I want it to be related to the actual value of the invention. What I want to eliminate is
Software patents are utter bullshit from word one. They should just go away and stay away.
Hardware patents are something else, but it's pretty clear they are being *very* poorly managed. I don't even like saying it, but I'm afraid I agree with you: they do more harm than good now.
We need an entirely new model of encouraging invention. Trade secret is useful in providing a reasonable profit window and establishment of precedence in the marketplace (the only way to go with software, as far as I'm concerned) as the window you get correlates well with the complexity of what you've done, but has its limits when we're talking hardware.
Perhaps a way for society to pay for an invention, and once that's been done, it goes right into the "available to everyone" pool. Panels of experts setting perceived value and an immediate payment being made, followed by a revisit ten years later to determine how it all went, with extra reward possible if the invention's impact was underestimated?
Look at me, suggesting government committees. Oy. I should go bang my head on a table.
But damn, we *really* need to clean out the drains. Patents are the disgusting glop that are making the system run slower and slower, while getting legal sewage all over everyone involved. The only consistent winners here are the plumbers (lawyers.)
Plenty of ionizing radiation from an impact like that.
But aside from that, a major impact would very likely crack the crust of the planet, and shroud any part that wasn't outright baked in sunlight-blocking suspended particulates. We could, entirely reasonably, expect the human race to survive a major nuclear war. There have already been 500+ megatons of nuclear weapons detonated in ~2100 separate events, and it'd be stretching it considerably to say it affected us globally.
A war would of course destroy a lot of infrastructure, but there would still be a lot of people wandering around afterwards, and plenty of opportunities to survive at various levels. Not so much with a major asteroid or comet strike.
If you have a 17 mile in diameter ~round asteroid that hits us at 20 km/sec, that impact would release 1,000,000,000 megatons (not a typo.) In terms of global survivability... Perhaps for sulphur-matabolizing colonies of organisms that live in the dark at the bottom of the sea. Although one would think that any life-supporting vent is likely to have a pretty severe "hiccup" as a consequence of such an impact.
But for us, on the surface? It's over.
...the somewhat tounge-in-cheek poster from cold war has this covered in its last step:
o Bend over and kiss your ass goodbye
Programmer's Pizza*
Eating just the right amount will allow you to reach optimum blood sugar levels for creative programming. However, be warned that eating too much will probably put you to sleep.
Please watch this space for the introduction of our follow-up product: Programmer's Spaghetti (with Object-Oriented Meatballs)*
*Garlic levels tailored for maximum personal isolation. Do not use if in a relationship or if expecting a job interview. May cause immediate termination of relations, arms-length disease, and acne. Not suitable for homeopathic dilution. May enhance programming mania. Use with caution.